Oct 4, 2009

Who are we?

October 4/2009

I ask just one question.

Who are we?

So, let me excite your mind.

There is no past - there is no future - there is only NOW. Now is less than a hundredth of a second, less than the blink of an eye and much less than a heart beat. And that is all we know. The past, even a fraction of a second ago, is assigned to history and lost forever. The future is in constant flow of arrival. Therefore, the future is totally liberated from the past and the past is totally liberated from the future. We live in the liner moment between. The moment we call, NOW.

With our automatic brains, we glide with the flow of time as if we never knew it was upon us, and we go on and on as if life goes on forever. Our future is so connected to our past in our minds, that we forget it’s arrival, only to morn it’s passing when we feel the loss of something. Yet, in that fraction of a second between past and future, life begins and life ends, and when we end, we have entered into another future we know not of. As William Shakespeare so eloquently said, “... that undiscovered country from whose borne no traveler returns, puzzles the will.” In that fateful moment of time, does the future still continue to unfold for us or do we cease to be? Forever? Puzzles the will indeed.

We are a consciousness of life; born in a fraction, living from moment to moment in a free flow of existence.

But sometimes it seems to be guided, as if planned. Why did we travel across half the world to meet someone who will be our friend for life? Were we destined to find each other out of the millions who roam this globe? Is there a greater guiding force, a greater consciousness? A planned destiny? We may think so, based on the belief of others, but have we really discovered this ourselves? We have the reasoning power to control our world and our thinking, so we have the means to figure it all out individually.

Out there, beyond our bodies, is nothing. Yet, we make meaning of everything. We impose our own meaning and values on all we see, hear, feel, decipher, by what we have learned in the past. Whether it’s right or wrong. For instance: A wooden chair. When initially asked, one person may see the wooden chair as the tallest tree that grew in the primeval forest. Another person may see the chair as being the art form and craftsmanship of a carpenter who spent days building the structure and carving the ornate patterns in the back of the chair. While another person may see the chair as a seat of power. This chair sits in the study of the President of the United States of America and it has been sat on by numerous presidents who have given the orders to go to war, fix the economy, signed into law many bills or conducted important meetings with international leaders.

We all have the capacity to think differently. Rational thought, reason and free will make us individual. These are functions of the brain we are given by the Universe (or, to some, our God), and it’s this individuality that make us different from all the other people we connect with. We all have unlimited potential and endless opportunities to change and grow, and what distinguishes us as human beings is our intellect, our curiosity, our emotion, our quest for something out there. Ambition and hunger drive us to find and pursue what ever goals we want to create for ourselves. Life is totally open for us to use our freedom. To create, us.

However, some will never know or understand that freedom. While some excel to greatness through individuality, others will never realize their true potential because they can’t escape their way of thinking and their surroundings. They will be stuck in ignorance and nurtured by their environment to become products of that environment. No matter what it contains. Good or evil. With a broad stereotype brush, we might say that poor neighborhoods breed crime and rich neighborhood breed philanthropists. But as we now know, we have the individual power to change all that.

The United States calls itself the land of the free, yet, are people really free? Most have been indoctrinated in culture, patriotism, society, politics, religion, family or some other thing that dictates how people: think, feel, do, be. We are all trapped in our own minds.

We must break free, to be free. Be ourselves. As Mahatma Gandhi said, “Be the change you want to see.” We must find that curious individual inside us. The individual that we really are. We must nurture our own way to think creatively within ourselves. And we must try to mold ourselves into the person we really want to be.

It’s not easy, but as soon as we “GET IT.” Get that we are really the masters of our own destiny, then there is an endless realm of possibilities and opportunities before us.

My question at the beginning was: Who are we?

My answer is: We are what we make of ourselves.

I leave you with this thought: Life, is getting actively involved in everything you do, and thinking your way to freedom is the best investment you could ever make in yourself.

QUOTESThe individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself.- Friedrich Nietzsche

Whatever my individual desires were to be free, I was not alone. There were many others who felt the same way.- Rosa Parks